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Timeline of Our Ministry in Israel

Chosen People Ministries is humbled and grateful for the Lord's enabling power and provision to be present and consistent in the Holy Land for over ninety years.

Our Hebrew ministry name "Beit Sar Shalom" ("House of the Prince of Peace"), and our goal, to proclaim His gospel message and help those in need, remain the same.

We expectantly work toward and eagerly await further harvest in His field!

Timeline

  • First in Jerusalem
    We ship 200 copies of our Yiddish-English monthly newspaper The Shepherd of Israel to missionary Frank Boothby, in Jerusalem, who distributes it in his storefront outreach called The Gospel Gate Room, along with gospel tracts and Bibles. He believes God is preparing His people to hear His voice and reports the Jewish people of Jerusalem love our Yiddish periodical and come specifically to pick up new editions. We continue stocking him with our paper at the rate of 200 copies each year.
  • Gospel Gate Room
    Need arises, and we officially begin supporting Boothby as our own missionary and cover rent for the Gospel Gate Room as our outreach. Meanwhile in Germany, Adolf Hitler is elected chancellor, and his Nazi party rises to power.
  • Refugees, War
    Upon Boothby's death, we call Sigourd Biorness to continue ministry at The Gospel Gate Room. During World War II, he describes unique difficulties in the land: Jewish European refugees pouring in to flee the Nazis, and the distressing lack of food, employment, and shelter for these arrivals. He assists with needs as best as possible, but eventually war closes most of the shipping lanes to the land and even Bibles become impossible to ship.
  • New Testaments
    We publish thousands of Yiddish New Testaments for distribution in the Holy Land as shipping lanes reopen after the war.
  • State of Israel
    The State of Israel is established. British military withdraws; Arab troops invade.
  • Jerusalem Again
    As the dust settles from the War for Independence in newly rebirthed Israel, we call and equip Haim Haimoff to spearhead our missionary work there. He begins by serving twenty-five Jewish believing families in Jerusalem. Soon after, we also commission W. L. McClenahan for the administrative side of ministry and to register our ministry as a foreign corporation in Israel.
  • Registration
    The State of Israel issues an official Certificate of Registration to our ministry under their law-one of the first independent missionary societies in the world to enjoy that privilege!
  • In Haifa
    We call Peter Gutkind to oversee our work in Haifa. He serves by teaching Bible classes, distributing care packages, and passing out gospel literature. Within three short years, he shepherds a thriving ministry with numerous Israelis receiving the Lord and getting baptized. Word of his ministry spreads, arousing the ire of a violent group of Orthodox activists. In August 1965, more than one hundred Yeshiva Youth attack Gutkind's home and destroy the contents. Thankfully, our missionary flees and escapes physical harm. Our work and worker in Haifa is in grave danger. He chooses to press on with ministry, and we provide a safehouse/apartment for him as he does so. The word goes forth!
  • Six Day War
    The Six Day War begins-and ends with Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish state.
  • Radio, Tel Aviv
    Our missionary Peter Gutkind initiates the launch of our partnership gospel radio broadcast throughout Israel using HCJB and Trans World Radio shortwave radio. After beginning with a thirty-minute segment seven days a week, we soon expand the broadcast to sixty minutes, seven days a week. This same year, Jacob and Leah Goren, both Holocaust survivors, accept our call for ministry to Jewish children in need in Jerusalem. Soon after, pastor Joseph Alhake in Tel Aviv joins our mission as well. We are delighted to finally have a thriving ministry in the land with multiple missionaries in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv, as well as a daily radio witness!
  • Printing, Advances
    Three major developments occur this year in Israel. First, the daily hour-long gospel radio broadcast throughout Israel now becomes directly and fully our responsibility (and thankfully continues for many years)! Second, we forge a publishing partnership with Ya'netz Press and Victor Smadja, who leads a believing congregation in Jerusalem. Last but not least, Israel recovers and wins after deeply suffering from the Yom Kippur War.
  • Tours, Outreach
    We initiate "See Israel through Jewish Eyes," a program to bring tour groups to Israel so they can experience the land and act as goodwill ambassadors for the gospel amongst the Israeli population. Around this time, short-wave radio broadcasts dwindle in effectiveness as a means of getting the gospel into Israel, so our twenty-year-long daily radio ministry finally concludes.
  • Russian Immigrants
    We call Avner and Rachel Boskey to begin a ministry among the thousands of Russian Jewish people entering Israel. A community of new believers emerges, and Boskey establishes a Messianic congregation in Kfar Saba, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The following year, we relocate missionaries Albert and Gretta Davis (already broadcasting in Russian into the Soviet Union) to Jerusalem to actively minister to the massive influx of immigrants escaping the crumbling Soviet Union. Two of these new Russian immigrants are Michael and Natalie Zinn.
  • Street Campaigns
    Our missionaries Boskey and Davis partner together with other missionaries and volunteers in two major joint evangelistic campaigns on the streets in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Michael Zinn joins our ministry team in Jerusalem.
  • Multigenerational, Multifaceted
    We happily appoint Michael Zinn as our ministry leader in Israel. He stands on the shoulders of many previous servants of the Lord who ministered in the Land. Our work amongst 1.4 million Russian Jewish people continues, multiple congregations in different cities are flourishing, benevolence work among the elderly and Holocaust survivors is thriving, and ministry among youth and children through camping programs continues to grow.
  • Jerusalem Messianic Center
    We purchase and dedicate our Jerusalem Messianic Center, which serves as Beit Sar Shalom's headquarters in Israel. The center is constantly busy with a wide variety of outreach gospel activities, especially Bible studies, events for Holocaust survivors. Sabbath dinners, Messianic congregation services, and family gatherings. It also has the capacity to house a dozen short-term workers.
  • Tel Aviv Outreach Center
    We rent our first Tel Aviv Messianic Center in an area of Tel Aviv with bustling nightlife. In addition to hosting "music and coffee" nights and regular Bible studies, we also operate a thriving soup kitchen. Every week, we serve a hot, nutritious meal to at least one hundred people who would not be able to eat a healthy meal otherwise-including the elderly, Holocaust survivors, single mothers, and poor families. We also distribute food parcels with important kitchen staples twice a week. Our unconditional love surprises people, and they frequently ask who we are and why we do this, opening up conversations about Jesus. Some ask us to pray for them. Occasionally our women also have the chance to speak with or minister to the prostitutes in the neighborhood. This time is a special season o ministry.
  • Ramat Gan Center
    We begin renting a strategic outreach center in Ramat Gan, an accessible part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. It quickly becomes the home base for frequent evangelistic events including concerts, Sabbath dinners, ministry to young moms, game nights, gospel-oriented lectures, children's classes, and Bible studies. In the fall of this year, we also launch social media evangelistic ad campaigns and are overwhelmingly surprised by the results! Within the first few weeks alone, several hundred Israelis request a personal copy of our book Isaiah 53 Explained in their preferred language. Many tell us they are open to further contact to learn more about our beliefs.
  • Online Discipleship and Evangelism
    During the quarantines of COVID-19, rather than diminish, our ministry abounds more than ever. As our staff reach out by phone, email, and WhatsApp to anyone who previously visited our ministry center, record numbers of Israelis respond to our missionaries. These not-yet-believers eagerly engage our Zoom Bible studies, asking deep questions and wanting meaningful answers! Our Isaiah 53 Explained digital outreach campaigns also continue. From these contacts, 1,400 indicate they would like follow-up to hear more about what we believe. Our twenty-three staff members in the land are busier than ever before!
  • Filled to Overflowing
    As an amazing movement of the Spirit grows among young adults, Holocaust survivors, and entire families, our events in the Tel Aviv outreach center now routinely pass capacity! We run out of room even for people to stand and listen. We pray for a building to meet our growing needs and have space to expand in the future. By November, the Lord opens the door for us to negotiate for and purchase a 4,000-square-foot building in a strategic location with easy access via car, bus, and train-not only to the entire greater Tel Aviv area but also to the rest of Israel! This building includes space for a Messianic congregation, a gospel café, concerts, young adult outreach gatherings, Bible studies, children's and mothers' events, public lectures on a wide variety of topics, and ministries to elderly Holocaust survivors. Most importantly, this new space will allow us to develop our community-based activities designed to demonstrate the love of the Messiah Jesus to Israelis.
  • Tel Aviv Messianic Center
    By God's grace, we have $3 million dedicated to the purchase and development of the new Tel Aviv Messianic Center. We need your help raising the additional $3.5 million needed to finish the project well. We are thankful for the ways the Lord has enabled us to minister in the Land of Israel, for all the men and women who diligently served there in decades past, for those who continue to be a witness for Yeshua in the land today, and for each one of you who have prayerfully and sacrificially stood with us-and will stand with us-as partners in the work of the Lord!

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